Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located on Mason Neck, Virginia, adjacent to Mason Neck State Park and along Belmont Bay. Established in 1969 under the protection of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, it was the first federal refuge established specifically for the protection of the bald eagle, and is currently part of the Potomac River National Wildlife Refuge Complex. The refuge is 2,277 acres (9.21 km2) in size, with 4.4 miles (7.1 km) of shoreline, and contains much oak and hickory forest. It also holds the largest freshwater marsh in northern Virginia.
Since its founding, the refuge has been renamed for Elizabeth Hartwell, a local activist who fought to keep Mason Neck free of development.
-
Boardwalk in Mason Neck
Famous quotes containing the words neck, national, wildlife and/or refuge:
“After all, it is not where one washes ones neck that counts but where one moistens ones throat.”
—Djuna Barnes (18921982)
“Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievments must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person. If we are not capable of this examination, we may yet become one of the most distinguished and monumental failures in the history of nations.”
—James Baldwin (19241987)
“Russian forests crash down under the axe, billions of trees are dying, the habitations of animals and birds are layed waste, rivers grow shallow and dry up, marvelous landscapes are disappearing forever.... Man is endowed with creativity in order to multiply that which has been given him; he has not created, but destroyed. There are fewer and fewer forests, rivers are drying up, wildlife has become extinct, the climate is ruined, and the earth is becoming ever poorer and uglier.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (18601904)
“The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.”
—Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)